An Overview on Urban Education: A Brief History and Contemporary Issues

This paper is designed to provide insights into both the ever-shifting nature-as well as the trajectory of-urban education in the United States. We provide a brief historical synopsis, a contextualization of how education in urban settings is commonly constructed through popular discourses, and a discussion of how the definitions and perceptions of urban schools influence research and policy measures. Lastly, this paper offers a brief exploration of recent movements and complications concerning urban education reform.Educatio

Addressing the "Elephant" in the room: exploring race and social justice in the early childhood years

This critical case study examined young elementary students’ understandings of race as they participated in an interdisciplinary Social Studies and English Language Arts unit in two kindergarten classrooms and one first grade classroom in two urban regions of the United States. The study utilized the principles of Critical Race Theory, Social Education, and Social Justice to analyze the young elementary-aged students’ thought-processes on race. By implementing an interdisciplinary unit on counter-narrative stories about the past and present experiences of communities of color, the students were also able to examine the impact of race through multiple perspectives. There were distinct differences in classroom teachers’ years of experience, their comfort level in addressing contentious topics such as race and racism, as well as their approaches to deconstructing complex information to their young students. This study also included an in-depth review of the teachers’ thoughts on race and their rationale for teaching their students about it. While the curriculum, lessons, and materials presented in each of the classrooms were slightly different, the common theme of developing a strong sense of community emerged in all three classrooms. Each teacher discussed that, as a result of presenting the students with lessons focused on all different communities of color and their historical fight for equity, a stronger bond formed in their kindergarten or first grade classroom. Considering the curriculum, lessons, and materials all addressed how race and racism impacts different communities, this study presents the conversations that could occur when teachers begin to hold explicit conversations about race with young elementary-aged children.Curriculum and Instructio

Governed by the rules? The female voice in parliamentary debates

[Summary of the book containing this chapter:] Speaking Out is the first wideranging collection to focus on the female voice in public contexts. Despite an ever-growing role in public life, many women even in the Western developed world still struggle to gain access to the public arena, and once there, to gain recognition and respect for their effectiveness as speakers. The contributors to this volume show how female speech is often received and evaluated quite differently from the speech of men, whether within government and politics, law, the church, education, the business world, or the media. The book is written with passion by a stellar group of scholars in language and gender from around the English-speaking world, offering students a broad theoretical and contextual canvas. They consider both the barriers and the opportunities encountered by women seeking to gain recognition in the public sphere on the basis of 'the way they speak'

Women, Language and Politics

This book addresses the problem of the underrepresentation of women in politics by examining how language use constructs and maintains inequality in political institutions. Drawing on different political genres from televised debates to parliamentary question times, and fifty interviews with politicians between 1998 and 2018, the book identifies the barriers and obstacles women face by considering how gender stereotypes constrain women's participation, and give them additional burdens. By comparing the UK House of Commons with newer institutions such as the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly, it asks: how successful have newer institutions been in encouraging equal participation? What are the interactional procedures that can be thought of as making an institution more egalitarian? It also explores the workings and effects of sexism, fraternal networks, high visibility in the media, and gendered discourses, through detailed case studies of Theresa May, Julia Gillard and Hillary Clinton